Power outage briefly halts flights to Miami, nearby airports: FAA

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration briefly halted flights at Miami International and nearby airports around noon EDT (1600 GMT) on Thursday following a power outage at Miami's Terminal Radar Approach Control, a spokeswoman said.

All systems have resumed functioning with the help of generator power, spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said in a statement. Air traffic control is allowing flights to land with spacing of 30 miles (48 km) between them, compared with normal spacing of between three and five miles, she said.

The issue affected a facility overseeing flights from central Florida to the Caribbean. During the outage, 14 flights diverted to nearby airports, Bergen said.

Planes in Miami, as well as those across the United States bound for the area, briefly could not depart, while those in the air were told to fly in a holding pattern until it was safe to land in South Florida.

Earlier, the agency said in an online advisory that pilots in the air could expect delays of up to 30 minutes. As of 1:25 p.m. EDT (1725 GMT), flight tracking website FlightAware.com showed 14 planes in Miami International and seven destined for the airport were delayed.